


Miles To Go.

by CescaLR



Series: Ginny Weasley, Veteran of War, Time Traveller, Defeater of Dark Lords, and Dark, but Good. [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, MAJOR alternate-ness, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, POV Ginny Weasley, POV Third Person, anyway, previous fics are required reading, thank you!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 23:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18980365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CescaLR/pseuds/CescaLR





	1. To Not Go Gently.

Ginny traced the words of the poem that was handwritten with incredible care onto the inside of the front cover of her namesake's autobiography:

> _Nature's first green is gold,_
> 
> _Her hardest hue to hold._
> 
> _Her early leaf's a flower;_
> 
> _But only so an hour._
> 
> _Then leaf subsides to leaf,_
> 
> _So Eden sank to grief,_
> 
> _So dawn goes down to day_
> 
> **_Nothing gold can stay._ **
> 
> \- Robert Frost.

Ginny had grown up with this book - some of her earliest memories are of it, some of those being this quiet, calming motion, of tracing the words that meant so much to the other Ginny that she named her book after them.

The Want Of Gold To Stay.

What she had meant by it - Ginny could never be sure. She wasn't that Ginny, would never be; she'd never had to live through war, never had to kill and to fight and to know in her next moment, she could very well be dead. She's never had to lose her loved ones to anything but old age, and she's gained so many more than that Ginny ever even had in the first place. 

It's - a daunting thought. Luna has this idea, this belief - your ancestors you share your name with... they're who you could have been. You are them, well and truly - a reincarnation of their core self - their souls; the parts of them that would have stayed as a ghost, if they were afraid to move on.

Ginny's an echo. She's something repeated; a person that's already been. There was another Ginny, who traced these words, who sat on this seat in the Burrow, who was family to Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley and Septimus and Cedrella and billius and all the rest, who liked to fly and had a temper - who cared, deeply, about those she knew.

Ginny closes the book. On the cover, like most biographies, there's a picture of the woman in question. The Ginny that looks back at her is different but similar - it's almost disconcerting. It's also _sad;_ how old she looks, how young she was. She's got scars for days and a look in her eyes that sends shivers down Ginny's spine, but she smiles, a small thing, whenever someone looks at her picture; small and inviting and friendly and  _kind._

Ginny's got so _much_ to live up to.

She opens the book back up, and traces the words again. From a young age, she'd known this poem - Queenie loved to read poetry to her, in particular, like it was some shared thing, like a link of some kind... Queenie's own way of keeping that Ginny alive, somehow.

There was another poem, that Queenie liked to read, on certain days. On softer days, in the evening - sunset, when golden light would shine through Ginny's open window... and on harsher days, when it was cold and dark and Queenie grieved for the people she'd lost.

> _Do not stand at my grave and weep_
> 
> _I am not there. I do not sleep._
> 
> _I am a thousand winds that blow._
> 
> _I am the diamond glints on snow._
> 
> _I am the sunlight on ripened grain._
> 
> _I am the gentle autumn rain._
> 
> _When you awaken in the morning's hush_
> 
> _I am the swift uplifting rush_
> 
> _Of quiet birds in circled flight._
> 
> _I am the soft stars that shine at night._
> 
> _Do not stand at my grave and cry;_
> 
> **_I am not there. I did not die._ **
> 
> **\- Mary Elizabeth Frye.**

It helped her cope, Ginny thinks. That Ginny, the one she'd known... she wasn't dead. Not really.

"I wouldn't - oh, sugar, no, don't worry 'bout me," Queenie had smiled down at her. "You're perfect the way you are, dearie, don't mind this old woman," She had laughed, like bells, through the silent tears she'd been shedding. "I wouldn't want you to be her, never that." She'd said, seriously, a little bit later. Ginny still doesn't think she was meant to have heard - but... Queenie's a legillimens.

So maybe she'd meant her to hear - but just... hadn't wanted a response.

Ginny closes the book. She hasn't written in it yet - what would she say? She's accomplished nothing of interest, really. Oh, great, Ginny the second got on the Gryffindor quidditch team - wooo _-hoo._

**_Amazing_**.

Frankly, next to _Ginny Weasley, The Woman Who Won,_ Ginny's little victories look like **nothing**.

* * *

"Hey, stranger."

Ginny looks over at her cousin and smiles. "Gally, hey. Been a while."

"That's what we get for moving to America," Gally grins.

Galahad Weasley is her uncle, Lancelot Weasley's, son. His mother, Gwendolyn Weasley (nee Knight), is an american witch who'd lived in England long enough to go through hogwarts - and, in turn, meet and marry Lance.

The whole family's gathering together at the Burrow for Bill's wedding - some of them, including Ginny but not Gally's lot, will be going over to France for the Delacour's version of the celebration.

"How's everything going over here?" Gally asks, as he sits down on the garden's stone wall next to her.

"Alright," Ginny says. "Nothing much happens here, you know that."

"Thanks to the efforts of one particular shared relative, yeah," He grins upwards, staring at the sky.

"Don't look at the sun, you'll blind yourself," Ginny says, as she shoves him lightly in the side, in lieu of acknowledging what he'd said.

"Better that then have to sit through this boring mess," He says. "Why'd we have to show up so early, anyway? The wedding's half a week off!"

"Suck it up, mate," Ginny laughs. "If I had to be here from the very _beginning_ of all this, you can sit happy through the end."

"Whatever you say, Ginevra," He grins, and dives off of the wall to avoid her ire.

* * *

Ginny could tell it was coming before it did - but not long enough before, in her opinion.

"Three months," Graves repeated.

"Yeah," Ginny said, sighing. She slumped down on the couch and frowned at nothing.

Three months. _Three months._ She was old and tired but nowhere _near_ ready. And, frankly, she wasn't even _that_ old, by magical standards.

Ginny hadn't even hit one-hundred, yet.

"There's so much left to do..." Ginny said. The sudden horror that came with just _knowing_ how long you have left to live made her, at the very _least,_ despondant. Because there _was -_ sort of. Nothing at the level of necessity as Grindlewald or Voldemort, but...

She was going to babysit for Molly and Arthur tomorrow, which is still a little weird but she's mostly gotten over it. She was going to have tea with Queenie and Jacob and she was going to take care of Tommy (the fourth, because - well, _Riddles)_ while Tom and 'Linda went out for dinner -

She had the whole month booked up. Ginny had a _life,_ and now it's just -

Three _months._

**_Three._ **

Graves is all grey, now, but no less polished. He's got a kid, because him and Seraphina are scary about lineage, suprisingly, now they're old. Amarantha's got a hell of a lot to live up to, honestly.

(A Graves and a Picquery. Ginny still shook her head whenever she thought about it; it's just... wow. Her _friends_. Ridiculous.)

Ginny's gonna die before him. 

"Who have you told?" Graves asked her.

Ginny closed her eyes.

"You," She said. Ginn couldn't bear - even just _thinking_ about it; telling Tina, Newt, telling Leta, Theseus, all the kids, Jacob -

Queenie.

Ginny let out a sob, and Graves, most uncharacteristically, stood up, walked over, and hugged her while she cried.

* * *

Ginny blinked awake.

Or, not awake, per say. _Aware,_ she figured. She'd _died,_ after all.

Ginny noted she was naked - and then, immediately, a robe appeared. After she'd put it on, the next thing Ginny realised was her _age._

Ginny looked over the skin of her hands; unblemished and healthy and _young._ She felt her face and could feel no scars - judging by the complete lack of scars, aside from minor ones she'd had as a child...

Ginny thought she was like she was. Before all this - before the war, sixteen, seventeen, maybe. She felt it, too, she thought - the memories of the war, of after it, felt strange and distant.

(In this universe, remember, Harry died, and stayed dead. After all - he'd finished his journey.)

"Ginny," Ginny heard, in a voice she barely remembered.

_Oh._

Ginny turned, and stared, transfixed on the image of the boy she'd once loved - messy hair and wire-frame glasses and _that same morgana-be-damned t-shirt_ and she **stared.**

" _Ginny,"_ He said, again, eyes wide with something like wonder.

"... Harry," Ginny said, simply. She breathed, or something like it, here in this strange empty space, and stared, helplessly. She was dead, she was sure of it - was this the afterlife? Or something else?

Was she just conjouring this up in her head - this image of something, some _one_ safe and half-forgotten, to make the transiton easier on her mind?

Harry moved, then, at her saying his name, and she moved, too, when he did - they met in the middle and Ginny could _remember;_ he hugged her like he always had, and she did the same in return, effortless, like it hadn't been about _a century_ for her since she'd last seen him.

And he was _Harry._ It wasn't some mirage, she could tell - no illusion would feel this real; the t-shirt wouldn't bunch up under her hands, he wouldn't feel warm - his breath wouldn't _exist._

Yet it does. So he's - real. As real as they can be, here, in this strange place.

"Where are we?" Ginny asked.

"In the inbetween," Harry said, apologetically. He stepped back, and looked around. "I don't know," He added, "I've never seen this place before."

Ginny looked around, and yes - now she saw, she knew where they were.

"Did Cho make it?" Ginny asked. She looked over the room - and, oh, it had been so _long_ \- so long since she'd agreed to that plan, so long since she'd **died** just for the possibility of another chance...

For the possibility of revenge. Ginny closed her eyes, and for a moment, mourned her - mourned the woman who'd lost so much she'd resorted to this, resorted to death, resorted to losing everything that she still had, even though it was nothing more than her anger.

Ginny mourned the woman that she'd been, at that point - before her first death, before her second chance. Ginny mourned the woman hardened by battle, by loss, the woman who'd made terrible choices - made _a horcrux,_ the woman who'd had nothing but the war left in her.

Ginny hadn't thought about it, for a long time - she'd mourned herself before, true. Mourned the girl before the war, before the battle, before even the diary.

But she'd never mourned the version of her who'd died, truly. Who'd sacrificed her _life_ for a sliver of sucess elsewhere. In that timeline, Ginny died. She is _dead._ Her body would have been destroyed, her life mourned, by those Cho didn't tell about the time-travel.

Ginny wonders, for the first time, who Cho told.

"Yes," Harry said. "Your timeline's Cho went back, eventually."

"Eventually?" Ginny asked.

"There were enough people who needed to go back, too," Harry said. "Maybe it's selfish, but I didn't pay attention to them."

"Oh," Ginny said.

"They're waiting," Harry said. There was something in his tone that made Ginny wary - a sort of wistful, sad, angry little bite, an edge of something bitter and unhappy.

"They?" Ginny asked.

"... They," Harry confirmed.

"What about you?"

"I can't," Harry said, horribly. "Did you ever hear the tale of the Three Brothers?"

Ginny stared, with terrible, dawning understanding.

"No," She said. "No - no, you - you _have_ to." She said, unable to accept this. "They're all - we're all _there,_ I - we need _you_ there too," Ginny continued, unable to _not -_ she coudn't - it wasn't just **her,** it was Ron and Hermione and James and Lily and Sirius and Tonks and Remus and Luna and Neville and Seamus and Dean and Cedric and -

"I can't," Harry said, miserably.

Well.

Ginny let go of everyone a long time ago.

"Then I can't either." She said, and grabbed his hand.

"You have to," He said. "It's - I can't keep you here, you weren't - you shouldn't even have _come_ here I just -"

"Had to see me?" Ginny asked.

"You've done so much _good,"_ Harry said. "And..."

"And you missed me," Ginny said. "And you're lonely. And you didn't get to say goodbye to anyone else. But I'm _here,_ now. And I'm not going **anywhere.** "

"You have to," Harry said. " _Gin._ Please."

"What, you want me to _go gently into the good night?"_ Ginny demanded. "No. **No,** plainly, _I refuse."_

Harry let out a laugh, like he couldn't help it, like he dearly wished this wasn't happening. 

"To not go gently into the good night," Harry said. "What a _novel_ idea."

"Don't mock me, Harry Potter," Ginny squeezed his hand. "You're stuck with me."

"We're stuck _here,"_ Harry said.

"No we're not," Ginny said. "Share your burden. Master of Death, right?"

"Yeah," He said.

"Well, give me something," Ginny said.

"You already have it," Harry said, and Ginny sighed.

Ginny reached into her robe's pocket - and lo and behold, there it was.

The Deathstick.

The Elder Wand.

"Well then," She said. "What now?"

"We figure out a way to move on, if you want," Harry replied.

"Sure," Ginny said. "Can't wait to brag to my brothers about saving the world," She grinned,

* * *

> _ Go gently into the good night _   
>  _ do not fear the the darkness _   
>  _ the abyss _   
>    
>  _ Do not rage against the dying light _   
>  _ accept the warmth of inevitability _   
>    
>  _ Rage! against your dying form _   
>  _ Fight against the shackles of the body _   
>  _ be strong in spirit _   
>  _ and do go gently into that good night _   
>    
>  _ Do not accept it easily,  _   
>  _ or frivolously tread towards it without cause _   
>  _ you'll know when _   
>  _ your spirit needs to be freed from the earthly cage _   
>    
>  _ go gently into that good night  _
> 
> _ \- Lola Sanchez _

 


	2. To Have Promises To Keep.

[edit: For some reason, this chapter was posted before I wrote it. Sorry about that. I'll update this again once it's done!]


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